Article madness

Been catching up on all my AlterNet and magazine subscription readings -- I'm not as distracted reading in cafes as I am reading in my own apartment!

Last month's Atlantic Monthly had good articles on liberal Southern female politicians, Barack Obama, and Republicans for Nader. (The so-called "Steel Magnolias" have to play political hardball but deliberately play on traditional "soft" gender roles to convince Dixieland voters they're not Hillary Clinton; Obama is brilliant, appeals across all demographics, and epitomizes the (myth of the!) American Dream, but the problem is he knows it; and Republicans who've maxed out on contributions to Bush are contributing to Nader's campaign to cut Kerry's percentage points a bit more. . . .)

On AlterNet, "Vietnam is a country, not a war" is really about Iraq (the author touches briefly on on good points about U.S.-Asia relations and about Vietnamese Americans, but come on, the same sentiments have been expressed for years with no attention, and now we're in another quagmire in a developing country...). "The South Will Rise Again" because Strom Thurmond and his ilk are dying off (plus, blacks are migrating back to the South, a statistical trend for decades now). And Sean Gonsalves is brilliant as usual. (I remember first reading one of his articles years ago -- it was the first critique of "bootstrap ideology" I'd heard outside of academia, and I got really excited about consciousness-raising in the "real world" with real, intelligent people. OOPS there... )

Reread the text of Malcolm X's "Ballot or Bullet" speech the other day. Still interesting to juxtapose with King's Letter, and compare/contrast urban/rural economic issues, the roles of religion in social/political movements. Different audiences, different regions, different goals (integration vs autonomy), but same underlying idea of justice. (Why I did I not take that junior seminar on The 1960s???)

On another note, I "borrowed" Unconstitutional from our Communications Dept. (Can't make the official community screening on the 22nd --will be pursuing a free food opportunity with CBB grads.) Anyway, the film is a good introdution to post-9/11 infringements on civil liberties -- it explains (chronologically, too!) the PATRIOT Act, post-9/11 detentions, and Homeland Security. It's only about an hour, too. Actually, I'm glad I'm not going to the community event -- the "discussion" afterwards will most likely be the typical Seattle rantfest with middle-aged ex-hippies. I'll take young fakey prepsters any day --they at least fuel my motivation to save the world from becoming an A&F ad.